Twitter says it will collect data on how the test goes before pushing the change out to all users.

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Twitter has started testing 280-character tweets, doubling the previous character limit, in an effort to help users be more expressive.

The company said in a blog post. "When people don't have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people Tweeting - which is awesome!"

This is a small change, but a big move for us. 140 was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit. Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence! https://t.co/TuHj51MsTu

The 140-character limit was originally established to reflect the length of SMS messages, which was how tweets were distributed prior to the development of mobile apps.

The test is being made available to a small subset of users and applies to languages other than Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. That's because in those languages, Twitter notes, you can convey about double the amount of information in one character as you can in others.

Can’t fit your Tweet into 140 characters? ??

We’re trying something new with a small group, and increasing the character limit to 280! Excited about the possibilities? Read our blog to find out how it all adds up. ??https://t.co/C6hjsB9nbL

Twitter has considered expanding the tweet length for years. By the end of 2015, the company was moving closer toward introducing tweets of up to 10,000 characters.

Twitter’s identity has always derived from its real-time nature and the brevity of its messages; 10,000-character tweets shown in a Facebook-style feed threatened to confuse the product.

We expected (and ??!) all the snark & critique for #280characters. Comes with the job. What matters now is we clearly show why this change is important, and prove to you all it’s better. Give us some time to learn and confirm (or challenge!) our ideas. https://t.co/qJrzzIluMw

In a blog post on Tuesday, Twitter said its emphasis on brevity would never change but that it had been wondering whether people could express themselves easily enough, hurting the service's popularity.

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